The Charlie Parker Collection 5-8: The Black Angel, The Unquiet, The Reapers, The Lovers

by John Connolly

‘Go write your book, Mr. Wallace. I won’t be reading it. I don’t think you’ll have anything to tell me that I don’t already know. I’ll give you one piece of advice for free, though. No matter how bad his friends are, Parker is worse. I’d step lightly when I’m asking about them, and maybe I’d be inclined to leave them out of your story altogether, but Parker is lethal because he believes that he’s on a crusade. I hope that you expose him for the wretch he is, but I’d watch my back all the way.’

  Tyrell made a gun with his hand, pointed it at Mickey, and let his thumb fall like a hammer on a chamber. Then he walked, a little unsteadily, from the bar, shaking hands with Hector one more time before he left. Mickey put away his notebook and pen, and went to pay the tab.

  ‘You a friend of the Captain’s?’ asked Hector, as Mickey calculated the tip and added it to the bill by hand for tax purposes.

  ‘No,’ said Mickey. ‘I don’t think I am.’

  ‘The Captain doesn’t have many friends,’ said Hector, and there was something in his tone. It might almost have been pity. Mickey looked at him with interest.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that we get cops in here all the time, but he’s the only one who drinks alone.’

  ‘He was IAD,’ said Mickey. ‘Internal Affairs.’

  Hector shook his head. ‘I know that, but that’s not it. He’s just—’

  Hector searched for the right word.

  ‘He’s just a prick,’ he concluded, then went back to reading his body building magazine.

  17

  Mickey wrote up his notes on the Tyrrell interview in his room while the details were still fresh in his mind. The pimp stuff was interesting. He Googled the name Johnny Friday, along with the details that Tyrrell had shared with him, and came up with some contemporary news reports, as well as a longer article that had been written for one of the free papers entitled ‘Pimp: The Brutal Life and Bad End of Johnny Friday.’ There were two pictures of Friday accompanying the article. The first showed him as he was in life, a spare, rangy, black man with hollow cheeks and eyes that were too large for his face. He had his arms around a pair of young women in lacy underwear, both of whom had their eyes blacked out to preserve their anonymity. Mickey wondered where they were now. According to the main article, young women who became professionally acquainted with Johnny Friday were not destined to lead happy existences.

  The second picture had been taken on the mortuary slab, and showed the extent of the injuries that Friday had received in the course of the beating that took his life. Mickey figured that Friday’s family must have asked for the photograph to be released; that, or the cops had wanted it done in order to send out a message. Friday wasn’t even recognizable as the same man. His face was swollen and bloodied; his jaw, nose, and one of his cheekbones broken; and some of his teeth were sheared off at the gums. He had suffered extensive internal injuries too: one of his lungs had been punctured by a broken rib, and his spleen had ruptured.

  Parker’s name wasn’t mentioned, which was no surprise, but a ‘police source’ had indicated to the writer that there was a suspect in the killings, although there was not enough evidence as yet to press charges. Mickey calculated the odds in favor of Tyrrell being that source, and decided they were about even. If he was, then it meant that, even a decade ago, he’d had doubts about Parker, and he might have had some justification for them. Mickey hadn’t cared much for Tyrrell, but there was no denying that the man who had killed Johnny Friday was dangerous, someone capable of inflicting grave violence, an individual filled with anger and hatred. Mickey tried to balance that with the man he had encountered in Maine, and what he had heard about him from others. He rubbed his still tender belly at the memory of the punch that he had received on Parker’s front porch, and the light that had flared briefly in the man’s eyes as he had struck the blow. Yet no other blows had followed, and the anger in his face was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared, to be replaced by what Mickey thought was shame and regret. It hadn’t mattered to Mickey then – he had been too busy trying not to cough his guts up – but it was clear upon reflection that, if Parker’s anger was still not yet fully under his control, then he had learned to rein it in to some degree, although not quickly enough to save Mickey from a bruised belly. But if Tyrrell was right, this man had Johnny Friday’s blood on his hands. He was not just a killer, but a murderer, and Mickey wondered how much he had truly changed in the years since Johnny Friday’s death.

  When he was finished with the Tyrrell material, he opened a paper file on his desk. Inside were more notes: twenty-five or thirty sheets of paper, each covered from top to bottom in Mickey’s tiny handwriting, illegible to anyone else thanks to a combination of his personal shorthand and the size of the script. One sheet was headed with the words ‘Father/ Mother.’ He intended to go out to Pearl River at some point to talk to neighbors, store owners, anyone who might have had contact with Parker’s family before the killings, but he had some more homework to do on that first.

  He checked his watch. It was after eight. He knew that Jimmy Gallagher, who had partnered Parker’s father down in the Ninth Precinct, lived out in Brooklyn. Tyrrell had given him that, along with the name of the investigator from the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office who had been present at the interviews with Parker’s father following the killings. Tyrrell thought that the latter, ex-NYPD, name of Kozelek, might talk to Wallace, and had initially offered to smooth the way, but that was before their conversation had come to a bad-tempered end. Wallace figured that call wasn’t going to be made now, although he wasn’t afraid to tap Tyrrell again, once he’d sobered up, if the investigator proved reluctant to speak.

  The partner, Gallagher, was another matter. Wallace could tell that Tyrrell hadn’t liked Gallagher any more than he’d liked Charlie Parker. He went back to his notes from that afternoon and found the exchange in question.

  W: Who were his friends?

  T: Parker’s?

  W: No, his father’s.

  T: He was a popular guy, well liked down in the Ninth. He probably had a lot of friends.

  W: Any in particular?

  T: He was partnered with – uh, what was his name now? – Gallagher, that’s it. Jimmy Gallagher was his partner down there for years. (Laughs) I always – ah, it doesn’t matter.

  W: Maybe it does.

  T: I always thought he was queer myself.

  W: There were rumors?

  T: Just that: rumors.

  W: Was he interviewed in the course of the investigation into the Pearl River killings?

  T: Oh yeah, he was interviewed all right. I saw the transcripts. It was like talking to one of those monkeys. You know the ones: see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil? Said he knew nothing. Hadn’t even seen his old buddy that day.

  W: Except?

  T: Except that it was Gallagher’s birthday when the killings occurred, and he was down in the Ninth, even though he’d requested, and been given, a day off. Hard to believe that he would have gone to the Ninth on his day off, and his birthday, what’s more, and not hooked up with his partner and best friend.

  W: So you think that Gallagher went down to meet some people for a birthday drink, and if that was the case, Parker would have been among them?

  T: Makes sense, doesn’t it? Here’s another thing: Parker was on an eight-to-four tour that day. A cop named Eddie Grace covered for Parker so that he could finish his tour early. Why would Parker have been calling in favors unless it was to meet up with Jimmy Gallagher?

  W: Did Grace say that was why he covered for Parker?

  T: Like everyone else, Grace knew nothing and said nothing. The precinct clerk, DeMartini, saw Parker skip out, but didn’t say anything about it. He knew when to turn a blind eye. A waitress in Cal’s said Gallagher was with someone on the night of the killings, but she didn’t get a good look at the guy, and he didn’t stay long. She said it might have been Will Parker, but then the bartender contradicted her, sai
d it was someone else in the bar with Gallagher, a stranger, and the waitress subsequently decided that she’d been mistaken.

  W: You think someone put pressure on her to change her story?

  T: They closed ranks. It’s what cops do. They protect their own, even if it’s the wrong thing to do.

  Mickey paused at that point in his notes. Tyrrell’s face had changed when he spoke about ranks closing, of men being protected. Perhaps it was the IAD investigator in him, a deep-seated hatred of corrupt men and the code of omerta that protected them, but Mickey didn’t think that was all. He suspected that Tyrrell had been outside the loop even before he joined IAD. He wasn’t a likeable man, as Hector had pointed out, and it might have been the case that the ‘Rat Squad’ had given him the opportunity to punish those whom he despised in the guise of a crusade against corruption. Mickey filed that observation away, and returned to his reading.

  T: What I couldn’t figure out was, what did it matter if Gallagher was with Parker that night, unless Gallagher knew something about what was going to happen?

  W: You’re talking about a premeditated killing.

  Mickey recalled that Tyrrell had reconsidered at that point.

  T: Maybe, or Gallagher knew why Parker ended up killing those two kids and wanted to keep that knowledge to himself. Whatever the reason, I know Jimmy Gallagher lied about what happened that night. I’ve read the IAD reports. As far as we were concerned, after that, Jimmy Gallagher was a marked man for the rest of his career.

  Mickey found Gallagher’s name in the phone book. He considered making a call before heading out to Bensonhurst, then decided that he might be better off surprising him. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to gain from speaking to Gallagher, but if Tyrrell was right, then there was at least one crack in the story constructed around the events of the day on which the Pearl River killings had taken place. As a reporter, Mickey had learned to become the water in the crack, widening it, weakening the structure itself, until it finally collapsed to reveal the truth. The killings and their aftermath would play an important part in Mickey’s book. They’d offer him scope to consult a couple of rent-a-psychologists who’d give him chapter and verse on the impact on a son of his father’s involvement in a murder-suicide. Readers ate that stuff up.

  He took the subway out to Bensonhurst to save a few bucks and found Gallagher’s street. He knocked on the door of the neat little house. After a couple of minutes, a tall man answered the door.

  ‘Mr. Gallagher?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Gallagher’s lips and teeth were stained red. He’d been drinking wine when Mickey called. That was good, unless he had company. It could mean that his defenses might be down some. Mickey had his wallet in his hand. He removed a card from it and handed it over.

  ‘My name’s Michael Wallace. I’m a reporter. I was hoping to talk to you for a few minutes.’

  ‘About what?’

  And now it was time for Mickey to massage the truth a little: a lie in the service of a greater good. He doubted if Tyrrell would have approved.

  ‘I’m putting together a piece about changes in the Ninth Precinct over the years. I know you served down there. I’d like to speak to you about your memories of that time.’

  ‘A lot of cops passed through the Ninth. Why me?’

  ‘Well, when I was looking for people to talk to, I saw that you’d been involved in a lot of community activities over here in Bensonhurst. I thought that social conscience might give you a better insight into the people and the neighborhood of the Ninth.’

  Gallagher looked at the card. ‘Wallace, huh?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He leaned forward and tucked the card carefully into the pocket of Mickey’s shirt. It was a curiously intimate gesture.

  ‘You’re full of shit,’ said Gallagher. ‘I know who you are, and I know what you’re trying to write. Cops talk. I knew about you from the moment you started sniffing around in things that don’t concern you. Take my advice: let this one go. You don’t want to go nosing around in these corners. Nobody worth talking to is going to help you, and you may just bring a heap of trouble down on your head in the process.’

  Mickey’s eyes glittered. They had turned to hard little jewels set into his head. He was getting tired of being warned off.

  ‘I’m a reporter,’ he said, even though this was no longer the case. ‘The more people tell me not to look into something, the more I want to do it.’

  ‘That doesn’t make you a reporter,’ said Gallagher. ‘It makes you a fool. You’re also a liar. I don’t much care for that in a man.’

  ‘Really?’ said Wallace. ‘You’ve never lied?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I like it as little in myself as I do in you.’

  ‘Good, because I believe that you lied about what happened on the day that Will Parker killed those two teenagers out in Pearl River. I’m going to do my best to find out why. Then I’ll be back here, and we’ll talk again.’

  Gallagher looked weary. Mickey wondered how long he’d been waiting for all of this to come back on him. Probably since the day his partner had turned into a murderer.

  ‘Get off my step, Mr. Wallace. You’re spoiling my evening.’

  He closed the door in Mickey’s face. Mickey stared at it for a moment, then took the business card from his pocket and tucked it into the door frame before heading back to Manhattan.

  Inside the house, Jimmy sat at his kitchen table. There was an empty glass beside him, and half a bottle of Syrah, along with the remains of his evening meal. Jimmy liked cooking for himself, even more than he liked cooking for other people. When he cooked for himself he didn’t have to fret about the results, about what other people might think of what he’d prepared. He was able to cook to his own satisfaction, and he knew what he enjoyed. He’d been looking forward to a quiet evening with a good bottle of wine and an old noir movie on TCM. Now his sense of calm, which had already been fragile, was shattered. It had been fragile ever since Charlie Parker came to his door. At that moment, Jimmy had felt as though the ground were slowly being eroded from beneath his feet. He had hoped that the past had been laid to rest, however uneasily. Now, the earth was shifting, exposing tattered flesh and old bones.

  He had always been troubled by the possibility that, in lying to the investigators, in keeping silent over the decades that followed, he had done the wrong thing. Like a splinter buried deep in the flesh, the knowledge of how he had conspired with others to bury the truth, even the little of it that he knew, had festered inside him. Now the time was fast approaching when the infection would either be purged from his body, or destroy him.

  He filled his glass and walked to the hallway. Taking a sip of his wine, he dialed the number for the second time since Parker had visited him. It was answered after five rings. In the background, he heard noises – plates being washed, the laughter of women – as the old man said hello.

  ‘It’s Jimmy Gallagher,’ he said. ‘There’s another problem.’

  ‘Go on,’ said the voice.

  ‘I’ve just had a reporter here, name of Wallace, Mickey Wallace. He was asking about . . . that day.’

  There was a brief silence. ‘We know about him. What did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing. I stuck to the story, like you told me to, like I’ve always done. But—’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s coming apart. First Charlie Parker, now this guy.’

  ‘It was always going to come apart. I am only surprised that it has taken so long.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘About the reporter? Nothing. His book will never be published.’

  ‘You seem very certain about that.’

  ‘We have friends. Wallace’s contract is about to be cancelled. Without the promise of money for his efforts, he’ll lose heart.’

  Jimmy wasn’t so sure about that. He’d seen the look on Wallace’s face. Money might have been part of the impulse behind his inves
tigation, but it wasn’t the sole motivation. He was almost like a good cop, Jimmy thought. You didn’t pay him to do his job, you paid him not to do something else. Wallace wanted the story. He wanted to find out the truth. Like all those who achieve success against the odds, there was a touch of the fanatic to him.

  ‘Have you spoken to Charlie Parker?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘If you wait for him to come to you, you may find that his anger is commensurately greater. Call him. Tell him to come down and talk.’

  ‘And do I also tell him about you?’

  ‘Tell him everything, Mr. Gallagher. You’ve been faithful to your friend’s memory for a quarter of a century. You’ve protected his son, and us, for a long time. We’re grateful to you, but it’s time now to expose these hidden truths to the light.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘No, thank you. Enjoy the rest of your evening.’

  The phone was hung up. Jimmy knew that it might be the last time he heard that voice.

  And, in truth, he wasn’t sorry.

  18

  The day after my confrontation with Mickey Wallace, I decided to tell Dave Evans that I wanted to take a week off from the Bear. I was determined to put pressure on Jimmy Gallagher, and maybe hit Eddie Grace again. I couldn’t do that while commuting back and forth between Portland and New York and relying on having Sundays off.

  And something else had emerged. Walter Cole had been unable to turn up anything new about the investigation into the Pearl River killings, except for one curious detail.

  ‘The reports are too clean,’ he told me over the phone. ‘The whole thing was a whitewash. I spoke to a guy in records. He said the file is so thin, if you turn it sideways it’s invisible.’

  ‘That’s no surprise. They buried it. There was no percentage in doing anything else.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I still think there was more to it than that. The record was purged. You ever hear of something called Unit Five?’

  ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

  ‘Ten years ago, all records relating to the Pearl River killings were ring-fenced. Any request for information beyond what was in the files had to go through this Unit Five clearance, which meant contacting the commissioner’s office. My guy didn’t feel comfortable even talking about it, but anyone who wants to know more than the bare details about what happened at Pearl River has to put in a request to Unit Five.’